Creating a Buyer Persona For Beginners: 3 Simple Steps
New to the marketing world? Then you may not be familiar with the Buyer Persona. However, the savvy marketer knows that this tool can be their secret weapon to understanding consumers. Keep reading below to find out how you can use a Buyer Persona to take your marketing strategy to the next level.
What is a Buyer Persona?
Let’s start with the basics: a buyer persona is a semi-fictional profile of your ideal customer. Extrapolated from market research and surveys of your customer base, this profile can help you create marketing materials that are better targeted to your customers. Targeting your audience is important to effective marketing; you would not want to market a children’s clothing store to single men in their 20’s, right? Developing buyer personas will help you determine who you are selling to, what kind of content would best speak to them, and where to most effectively spend your valuable marketing dollars.
How to Build a Buyer Persona For Your Business
Now that you know what a buyer persona is, and the benefits of creating one, let’s explore the steps needed to make one for your marketing plan.
Choose Your Ideal Customer
Most businesses have more than one type of person that they’re trying to reach, but for this exercise, it’s helpful to choose one customer to focus on. To get started, decide who you would like to target with your marketing strategy and give them a name that tells a bit about who they are. For example, if you’re selling children’s clothes and want to reach mothers of young children try “Mother Michelle”.
Gather some information about your Ideal Customer
The ideal way to gather information to use in your buyer personas is customer surveys and interviews. You would be surprised how much feedback some customers will give you, especially if you offer them an incentive for talking to you. If you are just starting out or can’t find customers to survey, it’s okay to use a mixture of creativity and online research. The information you are looking for falls into seven categories:
Demographics (Age, Location, Income, Marital Status, etc.)
Identifiers (What is their demeanor? What are their communication preferences?)
Goals (What motivates them?)
Challenges (What is standing in their way?)
Opportunities (How can we help them meet their goals? Or overcome their challenges?)
Influences (Who do they listen to? Where can we reach them?)
Sales objections (What would stop them from purchasing your product or becoming your client?)
For each category, try to ask a few questions to get a full picture of what’s going through their mind. If you can, record the interview or have it in writing. Adding some real quotes from your customers will set a great buyer persona apart.
Organize your information
This final step is my favorite because it’s time to get creative! Now that you have acquired your information, it’s time to format it so that you can easily share it with the rest of your team. The best buyer personas are organized into a document that’s visually pleasing and easy to read. If your brand or company has a style guide, incorporate this into your design for maximum consistency. As always, make sure that your spelling and grammar are perfect!
Have you created an ideal buyer persona? Do you want to share any additional tips or tricks?
Let us know in the comments below!